


Oubliette

by leiascully



Series: The FBI's Most Unwanted [60]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, X-Files OctoberFicFest 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22079269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leiascully/pseuds/leiascully
Summary: The cases with the children were the worst, she thought dully.
Series: The FBI's Most Unwanted [60]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/249118
Kudos: 5





	Oubliette

**Author's Note:**

> Timeline: "Oubliette"  
> A/N: For the Inktober prompt "swing".

The cases with the children were the worst, she thought dully. They should have been playing, not cached in a stranger’s basement, cowering in the damp. Amy should have been making herself dizzy on the merry-go-round. Lucy should have been on the swings, pumping her legs to fly higher. But Lucy had lost those five years to the dark. The rest of her life was filtered through those shadows. Scully ached thinking of it: her head, her heart, something deeper inside her. 

Scully loved the swings when she was young. There was a freedom in it that she hadn't found elsewhere. She thought she’d love them still, if she had the chance. Maybe she should have made it. Maybe there would still be something special in the experience: the wind in her hair, gravity catching at her and slipping. Mulder might even push her.

The cases with children were hard on him too. He suffered for them, with them, some part of him trapped in that oubliette, calling out for help that never came. She could see in the lines of his shoulders: he held himself responsible for Lucy’s fate, for the first time she was failed and the last, for twenty-two years of misery he didn’t cause. She envied him the breadth of his heart sometimes. She felt cloistered in her own, an anchoress reaching out blindly. All shall be well, she said, touching his fingertips with hers, and all manner of things shall be well, but what did it mean coming from someone who had blinded herself what was happening outside? 

They didn’t speak much that night. He’d want to go to Lucy’s funeral. She’d go with him, two solitary mourners in dark suits, bearing witness to a life stolen by the latest in their file cabinet full of men so twisted they’ve become monsters. If it rained, they’d stand together under a black umbrella and watch the rain wash the earth back over her. The water would reclaim them all, one day.


End file.
